Phiya Kushi's Blog: Musings on life and macrobiotics

Day 2 – October 31, 2009

November 1, 2009

Umpachene Falls, Southfield, MA - 10/31/09

Yesterday morning I visited a home near Umpachene Falls in Southfield, MA. It was a modest farm house built in the 1950s. The house belonged to the grandparents of the woman whom I was visiting. Her grandfather built the house using trees from the land and he told his wife, “I will build you a house if you will make it a home!” And he did. And she did.

Much later he died and then years after his passing she became ill and was told by doctors that she had a limited time left on earth. Her family wished for her to go a nursing home but she refused. So the woman, the granddaughter, stayed with her and took care of her and she got better! She kicked the granddaughter out of her home and lived another two more years and then died a very happy woman in the home that she made, in the house that her husband built for her, out of the trees that used to grow on the land.

Ahh…life, love and death!

I heard another story in the evening about a man, a Native American and former Vietnam Vet, who unknowingly contracted a parasite after eating some raw fish somewhere in the Florida Keys. He became weak and so went to doctors who couldn’t figure out what his problem was and eventually told him his problems were psycho-symptomatic and more or less refused to help him. He then sought help from alternative medicine and the person he went to suggested that he might have a parasite and offered a remedy. He took it and soon after out came the parasite. He kept it and showed to the doctors who couldn’t help him. In his disgust of conventional medicine he went on to study macrobiotics and alternative medicine and became a healer himself, helping many others.

Years later, when talking hypothetically about his future death he said that he would prefer to die very quickly, like with a heart attack or some type of sudden accident. Well, one day at age 65, his death wish came true. He and his wife were riding horse and he fell off, hit his head on a rock and died instantly. It was a freak accident. Fulfilling his wishes, his wife cremated him and then traveled the globe, spreading his ashes to the four corners of the earth.

Ah…more life, love and death! How beautiful and wonderous! Our lives are so fleeting and yet we make such a fuss of so many things everyday and every moment that, in the end, are no more significant then the fallen leaves on the stones by Umpachene Falls!